C. Norman Coleman / Paul Kaplan Endowment Fund for Mentorship Awardees of 2023
ICEC is excited to announce this year’s C. Norman Coleman / Paul Kaplan Endowment Fund for Mentorship grantees. Five researchers received funds to develop solutions to current deficits in global cancer care. This year, the fund is supporting research ranging from mentorship, accessibility to radiation therapy, and cervical and breast cancer.
Explore the graphics below for more information on their fields of study and research:
Read their halfway reports below:
2023 Grantee Halfway Progress Reports
The Status of Radiotherapy Centers in Nigeria
Prevalent issues in current RT centers in Nigeria: Lack of access to RT, cost of paying out of pocket, distance from radiotherapy centers and lack of manpower, equipment and basic infrastructure.
Nigerian cancer centers visited:
- Eko, Marcel Ruth, LUTH-NSIA, Asi-Ukpo and American Cancer Centre
Accomplishments:
- Data collection has been finalized
Pending:
- Data set analysis
- Final written report
Observations: TrueBeam Linear accelerators, Co-60 machines with multi-leaf collimators, widening scope of collaboration, challenges in training, equipment, and an increasing volume of patients.
Angela Karia
Breast Cancer Related Arm Lymphedema and the Associated Factors Among Patients Attended at Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI)
By identifying Breast Cancer Related arm Lymphedema (BCRL) prevalence, severity and risk factors that are supported by evidence from this study, clinicians would be able to foresee and prevent BCRL in order to enhance quality of life by offering early intervention.
Aim 1 : To determine prevalence of BCRL in patients with breast cancer attended at ORCI
Aim 2 : To determine severity of BCRL in patients with breast cancer attended at ORCI
Aim 3 : To describe factors associated with BCRL among those with breast cancer attended at ORCI
A cross sectional study involved 117 breast cancer patients who attended ORCI clinic from Oct 2022 to March 2023 who have completed treatment within 2 years. Arm circumference measurement was taken once during a clinic visit after treatment. BCRL was graded as a circumference change relative to the contralateral arm by using LENT SOMA grading system.
Accomplishments
- Data collection has been finalized
- Dataset has been analyzed
- A preliminary report draft has been generated for the research project.
Pending
- Final report with corrections and inputs from supervisors and mentors
- Manuscript writing
Goodluck Nchasi
Research Scholars Program Progress Report
Our research mentorship program’s initial pilot cohort (2021–2022) comprised 10 medical students, and per request from other allied health student associations at the Catholic University of Health and Allied Science (CUHAS), the program later expanded to include pharmacy students. For the 2nd cohort (2022-2023), 8 fourth-year medical students and 3 third-year pharmacy students were competitively selected to be part of the scholar cohort. The qualified scholars are paired with research mentors from CUHAS and other research institutions to develop and implement their research projects.
Currently, scholars have completed 90% of lectures (1 online and 5 physical) on topics including research ethics, design, and analysis. Pre- and post-implementation surveys have been collected after each lecturer to evaluate knowledge change, and knowledge scores are being modeled as a function of exposure groups based on the number of workshops attended, adjusting for the individual-level baseline knowledge score. In addition, 3 small group discussions have been implemented and facilitated by alumni from the pilot cohort. The ICEC Endowment Fund for Mentorship has greatly supported our scholars’ IRB submission, stationary, and statistical support. We are looking forward to our scholars’ project completions, conference presentations, and publications.
Mwitasrobert Gisiri
Bladder Protocol Compliance and its Effect on Radiation Enteritis Among Cervical Cancer Patients at Ocean Road Cancer Institute
This project sought to assess the overall status of compliance with bladder protocol and how the compliance pattern affected the severity of radiation-induced enteritis at Ocean Road Cancer Institute. It was a prospective study that aimed at recruiting and surveilling a total of 79 participants. Data collection was to be carried out from January 2023 to June 2023.
Aim 1: To assess bladder protocol compliance among cervical cancer patients on external beam radiotherapy at ORCI
Aim 2: To determine which of the 5 weeks of external beam radiotherapy has the least bladder protocol compliance among cervical cancer patients treated with radiotherapy at ORCI
Aim 3: To assess the relationship between weekly compliance and grade of enteritis among cervical cancer patients treated with radiotherapy at ORCI
Accomplishments
- Data collection has been completed
- All data has been cleansed and analyzed
- A draft of the preliminary report, for the research project, has been created
Pending
- Final edits on the preliminary report
- Manuscript writing